Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Just like last week, we got comics on Tuesday this week. Unfortunately not a lot of comics. I had actually given up on Sonic Universe and was only reading the main Sonic title, but there wasn't much this week and it was part 1 of a story arch featuring Team Dark, and I'm a sucker for Team Dark.

So the story here is that a Black Comet is heading for Earth carrying on it Black Doom aliens from the Shadow the Hedgehog game. The comic actually makes an editorial reference to this having happened in that game despite the fact that the games and the Archie comic universe are two very different continuities. Team Dark and some GUN agents take a space ship to go on board and destroy the aliens, and Shadow encounters this guy.

That sorta looks half Black Doom alien and half echidna like Knuckles. Anyways this issue was pretty weak. I wanted to like it, I like Shadow, and I like Team Dark, and I even like the Black Doom aliens. Hell, I'm one of the few people that kinda liked the Shadow the Hedgehog game. It wasn't great, but few modern Sonic games really are in my opinion. This book had some solid character moments with Team Dark, but the story felt a little sloppy and I don't referencing the game rather than past issues was a stupid and confusing editorial choice, especially since you're referencing a rather unpopular game. I give it two Chaos Controls out of five, and that's really only because I like Team Dark.

Monday, December 30, 2013

Well the year is almost at a close, it's a time to look back, so I figured I would select a few of my favorite blog posts over this past year in case you missed them. I know a lot of you are new after all, so here they are, in no particular order.

So there you have it. That's what I think was my best work on this blog this year, and I didn't even include any of my reviews of comics, games, and movies on there. Here's to another year and even better things to come.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

It's truly amazing when you come across a theory where a number of little mysteries suddenly make sense in light of it. For years I have found myself puzzled by the modern mainstream conservative movement. One of my earliest posts on this blog was asking the question what exactly is conservatism. This book poses the theory that conservatism and liberalism are just intellectual manifestations of the r/K mating strategies that we developed as a young species.

For those of you unfamiliar, r/K refers to the different breeding strategies animals adopt, the common example for r being rabbits and for K being wolves. The r strategy is used in creatures who's populations generally never exceed or even reach the environment's carrying capacity, who never have to compete for food, mate indiscriminately and put little investment in their offspring. K refers to animals, usually predators, who are at or near their environment's capacity, who breed selectively, invest heavily in each of their offspring, and must compete very rigorously for the limited resources. Now obviously these two strategies exist on a spectrum, all humans are K compared to say a Sea Turtle, but humans can be r or K relative to each other.

So the theory holds that early in the history of our species we would reach carrying capacity of our environment, the K humans would stay and compete for resources and the r humans would migrate and head towards newer areas, until their numbers expanded starting the cycle over again. So if you accept the idea that conservatism is just an intellectualizing of the K strategy and liberalism just the r, suddenly so much about both sides makes a lot of sense doesn't it? Why do the K types favor capitalism? Why do they favor war? They are competitive. Why do they support socially restrictive laws of the type that the religious right loves? Because they are extremely protective of their offspring and feel the need to restrict their sexuality as long as possible so they can pick the fittest mate. Neither the pro war foreign policy or the Rick Santorum style social conservatism make sense if you take conservatives claims of being "small government" at face value. But if you understand these are not logical thought out positions but rather just intellectual manifestations of the K strategy it makes sense. Likewise liberals and their lose sexual morals, tolerance for crap like single moms, and love of the welfare state make sense when you consider them in light of the r strategy. They don't produce, they just consume. Also their taste for novelty makes sense when you consider the r strategy is always looking for greener pastures to graze on. Likewise the conservative clinging to traditionalism is the inverse of that.

I could go on and on, but I'm not here to rehash the whole book, I'm simply here to tell you that you should read this book. This is not only a good book but an important one and has to potential the completely change how we view the both politics and the cycles of history.

So it seems any hopes of DC making a Shazam/Captain Marvel movie are dead now that Superman is hot again. According to director Peter Segal, who was once in line to do a Shazam movie:

“Now that Superman is being invigorated and going up against Batman, I
think it’s difficult for DC to figure out how to launch this character
in the wake of Superman’s resurgence.”

I mean, you can't have two similar movies out there, that would totally not work. This is why you can't make shit happen DC, this is why Marvel keeps spanking you at the box office. You just don't try. Sure you FINALLY are going to do a Superman/Batman movie, but Marvel as at least tried to get damn near every major franchise out there. Yeah the results have been mixed at times, but still you have to look pretty hard to find major Marvel characters that haven't been on the big screen.
This is why when I heard that Wonder Woman would be in the new Superman/Batman movie and played by Gal Gadot I wasn't upset. Sure she's a horrendous cast choice, but I'm just happy to see DC is at least daring to put the amazon on the big screen. At this point I'm just happy with effort from Warner Bros when it comes to these movies. I mean if Marvel is willing do a freaking Guardians of the Galaxy movie then you got no excuse to for this kind of cowardice.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Comics on Tuesday? It's a Christmas miracle. If you haven't already, check out my reviews of issues 1, 2, and 3. This issue starts out with Batman and Catwoman in the Batcave getting some weapons Batman has to take out the Justice League should they ever go bad, among them a Sinestro Corps ring. We also see that Grid of the Syndicate is spying on them through a still activated surveillance camera. Then we cut to Luthor using electricity to try and revive Black Adam as Captain Cold is building a new Cold Gun using some of Luthor's tech. Superwoman reveals to Ultraman that Owlman is planning to betray him and that she's pregnant with Ultraman's child. Before she had told Owlman it was his baby so just who's is it? Does she even know? Does she even care? Luthor's gang of villains eventually run into Batman and Catwoman as both are gathering supplies to take on the Syndicate. The two groups are about to fight when Power Ring and a few villains working with him burst in. Batman uses the Sinestro Corps ring against him but Power Ring manages to remove it from him. Just then Sinestro shows up to challenge Power Ring.

I'm really liking this series so far. There were a few decent character moments between Batman and Catwoman, even if it does kinda show how much of their history has been lost due to the reboot, and even Luthor and Bizarro had a nice little bonding moment. All and all I think that, so far at least this is the first worthwhile story to come out of the New 52 that couldn't have been told in the old pre-Flashpoint universe.

If you haven't already, check out my reviews for issues 24 and 25. This issue starts with Grid's inner monologue, apparently he was present in Cyborg from the moment he first became a Cyborg and had been growing in him since. Grid can't feel emotions but desperately wants to. So he is reviewing files on Syndicate members hoping something in it entices a feeling out of him. So he watched the origin of Power Ring, which is much like Green Lantern's origin except that Hal was a spineless coward who was chosen by the Volthoom entity that lives in his ring that was once worn by Abin Sur. We also see the origins of Johnny Quick and Atomica, apparently they were lovers and serial killers and were cornered by cops at S.T.A.R. Labs when lighting stuck the lab creating explosions that gave them their powers. Grid tries to access the file on Superwoman but finds it blank.

I really liked seeing the origins of the various Syndicate members, as a long time fan of the Syndicate I wish their origins had been done in greater detail before. This is a really enjoyable tie in to a very enjoyable event. Also I love how Superwoman is clearly playing everyone. Obviously she deleted her own file. I wonder what she has up her proverbial sleeve.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Some of you girls are just outright ruining geek culture. Not all of you. Not even most of you, so don't take this as me throwing a "No Girls Allowed" sign outside my clubhouse or any other typical Sarkeesian style accusation. No, I love girl nerds. And on behalf of all of us guy nerds, we're happy to have you on board. But a small but very loud and annoying minority of you need to knock off your shit and the rest of you girl nerds need to police your own because they're making you look bad.

For instance, I'm sure a lot of you already know about Mighty No. 9, the spiritual successor to Mega Man pitched by Mega Man co-creator Keiji Inafune that was funded through Kickstarter. Well, an interesting little controversy has erupted. It seems that one of the staff on that project, a lady by the name of Dina Abou Karam, who by her own admission got the job through nepotism and isn't even a Mega Man fan, has made some fans and Kickstarter backers uneasy with her Tumblr style feminist politics and praising of that scumbag Sarkeesian. Now it is questionable as to how much influence she might have, she is only a community manager after all, but still, that's the bridge between the fans and the creators so it is a concern. And Mighty No. 9 fans rightly voiced their concern over this pointing out some of her tweets about not playing Mega Man before and being a social justice retard. Her response was to lock her Twitter and only unlock it once she had deleted some of those more troubling tweets. All this is pretty well documented in a video by Internet Aristocrat. So a social justice warrior who doesn't even like Mega Man gets a job through nepotism on a project meant to be the long awaited spiritual successor to Mega Man and when the fans very rightly are displeased by this, what does The Mary Sue, the self proclaimed guide to girl geek culture do? They point to this as part of a pattern of "harassment". Because pointing out very very legitimate concerns about a person involved in a project you helped financially back is harassment. What was the rest of the "pattern"? Apparently some armature game designer named Zoe Quinn created a game called Depression Quest. It's a text based game about having depression, you know, in case Gone Home was too much of an actual game for you. She was being "harassed" because some people thought that was a stupid idea for a game and weren't afraid to tell her.

Oh I'm sure some people called these ladies names. Boo fucking hoo. That's the internet. But girl geek culture really needs to excise the word "harassment" from its vocabulary. Because all it does is make you look like a whiny little twat crying "victim". You'll get the white knighters defending you sure, but more and more you'll just lose face with the rest of us. We're all nerds after all, we've ALL faced bullies at one point or another, so we really don't want to hear it. And it's just online, they're just words on a screen. Woman up and deal with it. If you pitch an idea for a video game, some people are going to say it sucks, especially if it's as fucking stupid as Depression Quest. If you end up working on a project like Mighty No 9 when you clearly have no business on it, and might infect it with your Sarkeesian style views, some people are going to call you on it. Legitimate criticisms are not harassment. And the fact that you have to face a few trolls here and there, like EVERYBODY does, is not an excuse to ignore criticism.

So ladies, I'm happy to have you in geek culture. But I need you to put your big girl pants on because this incessant whining has got to stop.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

So last issue Ock-Spidey tricked Flash into letting him remove the Venom symbiote from him and then it jumped onto Ock-Spidey making him the Superior Venom. Ock-Spidey takes control over the symbiote, or at least seems to, and decides to bust up some crime to show the world he's in control of it. Meanwhile back at the lab Flash says he's been using a drug to keep the symbiote under control and without it it will overtake Spidey, and the doctor there informs him that he's become dependant on the symbiote and without it he will die in a few hours. During his rounds Ock-Spidey gets a call from his midget girlfriend Anna still upset over how bad things went when she met Aunt May. Peter decides to confront Aunt May about how she acted around Anna and while there MJ shows up to confront Peter over how he's been acting. Ock-Spidey has to split and he reveals to MJ that he has the symbiote, which she of course freaks out over. Meanwhile Green Goblin is impersonating Hobgoblin to steal Hobgoblin's cut off of his underlines. Not because he wants the money, just to screw with Hobgoblin. Our issue ends with MJ calling the Avengers to inform them Spider-man has been taken over by the Venom symbiote.

This was an interesting issue. The Goblin king subplot with Green Goblin is progressing nicely, and there were a lot of subtle character moments here and there. MJ's reaction to the symbiote reveal was great, you could tell she was instantly reliving a lot of horror right there. Also when the symbiote is first on Ock-Spidey it comments that the old host "tastes bad" now. The fight with the Avengers next issue should be pretty interesting, but I was a little disappointed with the last Avengers clash in this series back in issue 8. All and all this has been a great series and this Venom stuff is one of it's better story lines.

Monday, December 16, 2013

So someone actually made a rap album based on the Sonic/Mega Man crossover comic story? Sonic? Mega Man? Rap? That's like three of my favorite things right there. Mega Ran and Mister Wilson both rap over mixed up Sonic and Mega Man game tracks, in the first one for instance the two rap, each one in the persona of Sonic and Mega Man respectively about how they will defeat the other in a rap battle style. The album tells the story of the crossover through the tracks and remains reasonably true to it. It would be easy to dismiss this as just a novelty album, because it kinda is let's face facts, but this is damn solid underground rap too. The rhymes are clever, the flow is solid, it's just very well done, and it easily could have been a cheap cash in. A few of the tracks like "Love is..." are pretty weak and didn't do much for me, but most of the is just great.

I bought the CD off of their site, because I prefer to have a physical hard copy of things, but while the CD won't ship until January, it came with a free download so I got to listen to it that way and I gotta tell you I've played it over and over several times since then. If you're a fan of Mega Man or Sonic you should definitely get this. And if you know someone who is a fan of either of the two blue heroes this would make a perfect Christmas gift.

And while we're on the subject of the Mega Man/Sonic crossover if you haven't already you should check out my reviews of parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

This has been a pretty pitiful roll out for the next gen consoles, mostly due to the absolute train wreck that was the XBox One debacle. I mean, tying games to your system thus crippling if not killing any sort of used game market? Damn. Sure PS4 has benefited from it, and the WiiU has more than a few games I look forward to playing once I get one, but I can't help but feel it sucked the air out of the room. The overall mood of the gaming community seems pretty dour right now. In fact, I and a few others think the whole industry is headed for a crash in the next year or so.

So with this mood in the air I keep hearing that maybe this will be the last generation of actual consoles. Now I've heard this for the past three generations now, mostly from PC gamers. PC gamers can be insufferably smug sometimes. "Oh, you play on an XBox? How cute. But my PC version has much better graphics." And they're right. PC games have better graphics than their console counter parts. I remember years ago getting Activision's Spider-man game from 2000 back when it was new for the PC because I didn't have any consoles at the time. Years later when I got my PS2 I went and got the PS1 version of that game and yes, the graphics were indeed better in the PC version. But do you know what makes the Playstation version superior in my eyes? I can still fucking play it. Having dug the PC version disk out recently I can tell you it is not compatible with any computer I have now. But I can just pop the Playstation version into my PS2 and play it well over a decade after its release. And that has always been the main advantage consoles had over PCs. You could keep your games forever. I still play my Genesis and SNES all the time. But consoles are throwing that away.

It started with the last gen abandoning memory cards. Why the fuck did you abandon memory cards? They were the greatest damn thing to happen in gaming. You had your saved game right there on an easy to store little card. Why save it on the console? Let's say I want to take a fighting game over to a friend's house to play. Well say goodbye to all the characters I've unlocked. And forget about if your console breaks (red ring of death anyone?). My Wii just shit the bed recently. Sure it's easy and cheap enough to get a new one thanks to all those non gamers who bought it years ago for Wii Sports and got bored with it, but goodbye to all those characters I unlocked in Mario Kart. Goodbye to all my saved games on there. And then there's the shift to online modes, DLC, and games only available through XBox Live or PlayStation Network accounts. In other words, much like the abandoning of memory cards we're moving away from physical copies to just digital. And the online stuff, sure that's great for the six months you're average game is popular, but then those servers dry up and you have a hard time finding people to play with and eventually the servers go offline completely. And if the developers put more effort into the online shit than the game then the stuff you're left with is pretty poor. And the digital only games. Ugh. I would love to play Sonic 4, Mega Man 9 and 10, and the new Rocket Knight, but I'm not going to get a pay a monthly fee to get an Xbox live account, buy those games, have to keep paying a monthly fee to have access to them, and eventually lose them when my system breaks or the servers go offline or something. This sort of atmosphere might be great for the hardcore PC gamer, who spends tons of money to get the best and newest equipment, gets the newest game, is fine with a monthly bill just to play the damn thing they already bought, and plays the hell out of it to the point where they're fine with moving on to the next thing in a year. But I'm a casual gamer. I play video games SOMETIMES. And when I purchase a game I want to keep it until I'm done with it, not until the general gaming audience is done with it. This shift to a PC style gaming atmosphere is making it seem like if you're not willing to pour your every bit of your free time and money into this hobby, then you just aren't welcome anymore.

So the real advantage that consoles had over PCs is disappearing. Consoles are trying to become little PC's. And they're never going to win that battle. They can't out PC the PC. So it seems to me entirely possible consoles might die with this generation. But it will be a death by their own hands. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to play a little Sega Genesis.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Last issue of Justice League we did an interesting character study of Ultraman. This issue, despite the misleading cover, we take a look at Owlman. We see that in the Crime Syndicate universe young Thomas Wayne Jr. actually killed his parents as a boy along with the help of Alfred as he feared they were squandering the fortune. Young Bruce was suppose to go along with that but betrayed Thomas at the last minute and eneded up killed along with their parents. We then flash forward to now and Owlman is on the main DC Earth consolidating the mob families under his leadership by killing all but one of their leaders and then making it clear to him who is really in charge. Then he later has a talk with the captured Nightwing. He tries to tell him to work with him just as Dick Grayson did in his world. Nightwing initially refuses but Owlman tells him he wants to destroy the rest of the Syndicate and tells Nightwing that at this point it's either going to be him ruling the world or Ultraman and our issue ends with Nightwing reluctantly agreeing.

This issue was a little better than the last one, as Owlman apparently has a much more nuanced character than Ultraman's blind social Darwinism. I thought it was interesting how Alfred said he Owlman was constantly trying to replace the dysfunctional family he murdered. Also keeping with the theme of family we see a cameo of Superwoman, who as we found out in Forever Evil #2 is carrying Owlman's baby, listening in on Owlman and Nightwing's conversation, seemingly in approval. As I said last issue these Forever Evil issues are some of the best New 52 books I've read yet, not that that's saying much though.

So last issue Dr. Wily brought out his secret weapon against Ra Moon, a robot he built based on Ra Moon's tech, Ra Thor. And then Ra Moon promptly took control of it. This issue we see the huge battle with the Robot Masters not under Ra Moon's control battling the ones that are and Mega Man battling Ra Thor. Mega Man throws every thing he's got at Ra Thor, including the several Robot Masters weapons he has copied and finally takes him out only to have Ra Moon send out a Devil robot combined with Ra Moon tech, Ra Devil. Dr Wily tells Mega Man that controlling all these Robot Masters along with powering Ra Devil has left him slightly vulnerable so Mega Man converts both him arms into cannons, which is really more than his power core can handle, looks at Dr. Wily and tells him to please take his remains to his father Dr. Light, and lets Ra Moon have it full blast taking him out. After a few panels of seeing the reconstruction efforts worldwide from the damage Ra Moon caused, Dr. Light gets a few visitors.

I complained that this storyline drug a little in the middle parts, and it really did, but the ending was very satisfying. We got to see Mega Man throw everything on the line to do what needs done, and even earn a great deal of respect from his enemy Wily. This will be interesting to see just how this will effect their battles in future issues. As I've said before this is the best all ages comic out there, and if you're not reading you really should give it a shot.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

So this little What If branches off during Rogue's first appearance when she was fighting the Avengers as part of the Brotherhood of Mutants. In this universe Rogue holds on to Thor long enough to completely drain all his power and life force thus killing him. This apparently allows her to carry Thor's hammer, despite supposedly not being worthy. During the initial battle with the Avengers she also ends up destroying the Vision, and later in her confused state destroys her fellow Brotherhood members. We cut to Odin outraged over the death of his son and we find out he cannot remove the power from Thor's hammer Mjolnir, speculating that it's due to her power. Loki decides to take advantage of Rogue's confused state and uses her to attack Asgard. Eventually Thor's spirit, or memories, or whatever in Rogue's head tells her she needs to be the hero he knows she can be and that even Mjolnir knew she was worthy. She turns on Loki saving the day, Odin weeps saying he lost a son but gained a daughter, and Rogue is basically the new Thor.

This issue was pretty good, but the resolution was far too rushed. It just felt like Odin in particular was far too quick to accept Rogue-Thor once she went good. And if left far too many questions, yeah she went good, but how long does it take her to gain the confidence of her fellow heroes? I mean she had quite the body count in this story. This was a common problem with the second volume of What If, since they were regular sized issues and not double sized like volume one, they tended to have a lot of lose ends at the end and the story wrap up too quickly. It's a shame this was never followed up on, they should have made her a member of Exiles or something. Still all and all it's an amusing read and definitely worth checking out.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Some of you are probably asking who the hell is Leif Erikson. Well, Leif is the soon to be ex-husband of mommy blogger Jenny Erikson. Jenny has long blogged about marriage and family as the token Churchianity girl amongst the Mommy bloggers, constantly talking up the importance of marriage and that divorce should only be reserved for cases of abuse and adultery. Until, that is, she got bored with her husband of over a decade and "changed her mind" regarding the importance of marriage. Poor Leif actually got a heads up from their pastor about Jenny's plans to ambush him with a divorce, a fact which greatly displeased her. For more on this unfolding and amusing saga check out Dalrock. So with that out of the way:

Leif,

You don't know me, but I know you. I know a lot about you actually. Frankly, I know too much about you. And why is that? Well, it's because your soon to be ex wife is making a public spectacle of her destruction of your family. I know that you were sniffing around this girl, stuck in the friend zone, for a long time before you finally got the green light. I know that you were a good little hubby who helped out with chores and gave foot rubs and tolerated your wife's borderline alcoholism. And I know that despite all that, she still tossed you aside.

Pretty harsh.

And how do you respond? You try to keep the high road, this is the mother of your daughters after all. So you "remain friends", you retweet tweets from her, you take this raping with a smile. Hell, she even accuses you on her twitter of being guilty of sins so great she dare not speak of them aloud without causing harm to your daughters. And you just let this slander roll off your back. What sin could that be? Well, a careful reading of her twitter feed suggests maybe it was a pornography habit. If that's true Leif you really should cut it out, but of course I'm betting it only started because she cut you off. But even if that's true, and it's doubtful it is as in an earlier blog post she said "nothing happened" you two just grew apart, it's still not Biblical grounds for divorce. Or even really remotely reasonable grounds.

But you know all this, no need to rehash it further. Leif, I'll tell you what you did wrong. You were beta. Or to put it in a more Biblical term, you were never the leader that you needed to be with her. Leif, I was like you. I went through two major relationships both of which blew up in my face and it wasn't until I discovered red pill philosophy that the ups and downs of those relationships made sense in hindsight. So here's what I want you to do, first brace yourself for the absolute raping the California family court is going to do to you. Second, fight for full custody of your daughters. You won't get it, but those girls need to see you fight for them. And third, get some game man. Read some manosphere Leif. I know you won't agree with all of it, there is a lot of over simplification and over generalizations on these sites I know. But it's still good information man. Read up on some Chateau Heartiste, especially the articles on body language. And definitely read some Dalrock to get some solid Christian manoshpere goodness. And this great video by my man Aurini on good little Republican conservatism vs red pill virtue. Leif, you're a smart guy and a decent looking guy, no homo. So get you some game and I guarantee you'll end up with a girl a decade younger and 20 pounds thinner than Jenny. And Jenny will slowly crawl into a wine bottle after a few years of being pumped and dumped. And your daughters will see you the winner and they will know what their mother did is not the way to go. I know, some of what you see and read on these sites might rub you the wrong way, but tell me, was the way you were doing things really working out for you? As my favorite preacher Steve Brown would say "You think about that, Amen."

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

So last issue Ock-Spidey and the new Venom end up butting heads with Ock Spidey pretty much looking to kill Venom. We the fight doesn't really go anywhere this issue, with Venom getting away. After that Ock-Spidey and his midget girlfriend Anna end have dinner with May and her husband Jay Jameson right after May received the treatment Ock-Spidey came up with to allow her to walk without pain. Before dinner Flash (AKA Venom) drops in to say hi to Peter and he stays for dinner. Peter asks Flash if he'd like to volunteer for his new artificial limb experiment and Flash agrees. Ock-Spidey shows up the the experiment as Spidey claiming he's a consultant of Peter and uses a sonic device to remove the symbiote, which backfires when the released symbiote takes control of Ock-Spidey.

Hmmm so the Superior Venom now? Well, if the symbiote does end up back with Flash then won't he know all about Ock-Spidey's deal? Though to be fair, Marvel has been a little blurry on whether or not symbiotes retain knowledge from the hosts after the whole Spider-Carnage thing. Still I hope this doesn't spell the end of Flash-Venom, I really rather liked him. All and all this is still an entertaining series, although the Ock-Spidey sage is starting to wear out its welcome a bit with me.